Once a Blue Always a Blue by Richard Edghill

Author:Richard Edghill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

8

THIS IS HOW IT FEELS TO BE CITY

THE summer of 1998 was a terrible time for all connected with Manchester City. We were sat in the Second Division and being laughed at by everyone. There were a few jokes doing the rounds at this time that our fans had to put up with.

One involved Franny Lee going shopping at Kendals and getting in the lift. He sees an old lady struggling with a few bags. Quick as a flash, Franny leans over to help her. ‘Can you manage, love?’ he says. She replies, ‘No Franny I don’t want your stupid job either.’

Next was Franny Lee in a hotel getting in a lift and ending up on the wrong floor where a conference is taking place. ‘Where am I ?’ says Franny. ‘You’re in the conference sir,’ says the lift concierge. ‘The conference?’ squeals Franny. ‘But what happened to divisions one and two?’

Other jokes involved a play on words. What does CITY stand for? Conference In Two Years. There was another one later when EIDOS became our shirt sponsors...Every Idiot Dreaming of Success. Later it was changed to Eleven Idiots Dreaming of Success. You get the drift.

I knew plenty of fans and they were going through it. People try to make out there are gloryhunters in our support now but the people who went to City in those days will tell you how hard things were. Plenty of those same fans will have gone to Barcelona, Madrid, Dortmund and Munich in recent seasons and enjoyed their nights out.

Pre-season came round so quickly that summer. I think they wanted us in earlier than normal for the sake of our fitness and for the sake of our minds because they knew we’d be dwelling on things over the summer.

The wounds were open for the players. We’d played poorly and to go into that situation at Stoke where we won yet everyone else around us also won was frustrating beyond belief. You look back at all the points dropped, all the missed opportunities, the manner in which we threw some of those games away. It wasn’t anything to be particularly proud of.

Joe had given a rousing speech at the end of the Stoke game and left everyone in no uncertain terms as to what was expected moving forwards.

I managed to stay injury-free in this season. I would need all of my powers to fight, scrap and battle my way to the finishing line come May. Getting a full pre-season under my belt was imperative.

It was a collective failure that had led the club to this position but even though I cared very much for the club I still didn’t see myself as the kind of person who would automatically feel they should be going round to other people and lecturing them on what they should or shouldn’t be doing. Certainly there were some frustrating characters in the dressing room. People who lacked heart, who lacked commitment. I felt and I was sure from speaking to our supporters that I wasn’t someone who fitted into those categories.

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